A trip to
the cinema for seven young film fans ended in tears after they were
dragged out of the screening and wrongly accused of filming the movie on
their iPads.
The 12-year-old girls had gone to see The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 at Cineworld at Brighton Marina.
But
their trip was cut short when officials pulled them out of the
screening and called police after they accused them of making their own
recordings of the film starring Jennifer Lawrence on their phones and
iPads.
A group of seven 12-year-old girls
were left in tears after they were hauled out of the cinema by police
and wrongly accused of filming a screening of The Hunger Games on their
smartphones and iPads
The girls were left sobbing as police searched their smartphones and found no evidence they had tried to record the cult film.
Cineworld and Sussex Police have apologised to the group, but did not offer any of the children a refund for missing the film.
Louise
Lawrence, a mother of one of the youngsters, said 'What I'm most
concerned about is the fact a group of young girls were left in tears
and nobody at Cineworld had the decency to check if they were OK
afterwards.
'They were left crying and alone by themselves without much of a thought to contact any of their parents.
We had dropped them off earlier in the day to watch the film so you would expect the cinema have some sort of duty of care.
'But they were falsely accused, had the police called and then left. It's outrageous.'
Cineworld
claimed it had contacted the parents and apologised for the distress
caused - but insisted its staff did nothing wrong.
A
spokeswoman said 'While we regret that the customers felt distressed,
we are confident that the correct procedures were followed.
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Staff at Cineworld said it took its responsibility to protect copyright seriously but has apologised to the girls
'Cineworld
takes its responsibility to protect the copyright of films very
seriously. Copyright theft is a very real threat to the film industry
and as such we work closely with film distributors and law enforcement
agencies to prevent illegal recordings.
'If
our staff see such behaviour we expect them to notify the cinema
management immediately and to call the police. It is for the police to
decide whether they feel it is appropriate to act on the information
provided to them.
'In this case, the police decided that there were sufficient grounds for suspicion and chose to attend the cinema.
'However,
we have taken on board the concerns expressed by the parents and we are
reviewing how the policy is applied to younger customers.'
Sussex
Police has sent an officer to speak at the girls' school to tell pupils
about the risks of recording films in the cinema and breaking copyright
laws.
A
spokesman from Sussex Police said 'We were called at 7.25pm on Friday
November 28 to a report of an emergency at Cineworld at Brighton Marina.
The girls agreed to leave the cinema with officers and the members of
staff and were spoken to outside.
'They
showed the officers their phones and iPads and it was clear that there
was no evidence that they had recorded any part of the film.'
